Welding glass for solar viewing?
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Can you use welding glass for solar viewing? I personally recommend sticking with ISO-12312-2 certified solar glasses for viewing the sun, including during the partial phases of the upcoming total solar eclipse.
Here is an affiliate link for solar glasses (Paid link).
Although I'm not comfortable recommending it, sufficiently dark welling glass may be ok. Of course, the question is then what is "sufficiently dark." Some sources say #12 should be sufficient. Others say #14.
I recommend you do your own research, but here are a few articles I ran across.
- Article on solar eye safety options by Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
- Article from NASA. Look at "Additional Safety Information" section.
- Another article. Talks about shade levels.
Again, I can't speak to the safety of such things, but some people seem to think it's ok.